Abigail Candelora
Concordia’s Department of English annually honours students with prizes, awards and scholarships for their work in English literature, creative writing and drama.
The 2019 English Department Drama Award, worth $300, was presented to Abigail Candelora for High School Sucks. The prize is given to a currently registered undergraduate student who demonstrates excellence in drama writing.
A high school bathroom. There are two stalls upstage right. One is unusable — maybe the door is hanging off it’s hinges, or has an Out of Order sign taped up… it’s one of those high school bathrooms. There’s a mirror and a sink downstage left, perpendicular to the audience. The mirror can and probably should be a hanging frame, and the sink doesn’t need to be anything elaborate because it doesn’t work anyway, and it should have an almost used up paper towel roll on it, and not the good kind of paper towel, but the papery one that doesn’t absorb anything. Lights up on MAX, 14, distressed, her white t-shirt covered in tomato soup.
Max: This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this cannot be happening. Okay. Max. Chill. It’s chill. You’re chill. It’s fine. Everything is cool and chill. It’s not that much soup. It’s chill. It’s fine. It’ll come out. (She rips off the remaining paper towel and tries to dab the stain out, but it doesn’t really do anything. She checks out her progress in the mirror. She’s more distressed and trying to keep her cool) Okay. Okay. It’s fine. It’s cool. It’s definitely coming out. Right? Yeah. It’s totally coming out. (It’s not coming out) Okay it’s not coming out. Maybe I need to rub it. (She rubs it and makes it worse) Okay! Don’t rub it. Okay. It’s cool. It’s chill. Water! I just need to rinse it with water and it’ll come right out. Yes. (She turns on the tap. No water comes out. She switches the tap on and off, more furiously as she goes until she’s fed up) Well screw you sink! Screw you high school! Just screw off! (A pause, then…)
Yasmin: (in the closed stall, unseen by Max)… Max?
Max: Who’s there?
Yasmin: Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.
Max: (drawn out) Oh my God…
Yasmin: I didn’t mean to like, listen to all that –
Max: This is so cliché.
Yasmin: What?
Max: I can’t believe I’m hearing God. This is so dumb. Judy Blume is soooo grade six.
Yasmin: Oh, no, I’m not –
Max: Well, I mean, if you’re there, God, like, it’s me, Max, and I’m having a terrible first day so could you maybe talk some sense into Katy and I don’t know, do you have a spare t-shirt? A cardigan? A Tide-to-go?
Yasmin: Max, I, uh, think you’ve got this wrong –
Max: Okay, I knooooow it’s kinda bold for me to ask you for something since I haven’t gone to church since like, well, since before mom and dad got all crazy. But I promise I’ve been really good! Or is being good a Santa thing? That’s a Santa thing isn’t it. I’m sorry, God. You saw this summer, though. I had to spend the summer in Bolton. Bolton. God, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Bolton but it’s as boring as it sounds. I couldn’t have pool parties or hang at the park with my friends or anything all summer. And now my friends just, what, cut me out of the group? ‘Cause I’m just not cool enough for them anymore? It’s all because of Mom and Dad and their stupid divorce and making me stay with Grandma Lynn all summer while Mom moved out with her stupid new boyfriend and now I’m covered in this stupid tomato soup that Jill was eating and Katy spilled all over me when I tried to sit with them all and it’s just all so stupid and unfair so like, God, can you fix this? Please? Um. Amen. (Silence as Max waits for “God’s” answer)
Yasmin: Um, Max?
Max: Yeah?
Yasmin: It’s Yasmin, actually.
Max: What? Yasmin: It’s Yasmin. Not, uh, God.
Max: Who?
Yasmin: We were in Ms. Cook’s class together last year. (Pause)
Yasmin: I transferred in January. (Pause) Jasmine? Ms. Cook called me Jasmine on my first day and everyone called me by the wrong name for the rest of the year.
Max: Ohhhhhh. You’re named Yasmin?
Yasmin: … Yeah.
Max: Oh. Uh. Oops.
Yasmin: Yeah. So, uh. Not God.
Max: Ohmygodthisissoembarassing
Yasmin: I’m really sorry, I tried to tell you, but I didn’t want to interrupt you.
Max: Oh my god today is so stupid I am so. stupid.
Yasmin: No, no, it’s okay, really.
Max: Wait. Where are you?
Yasmin: Um. The stall.
Max: And you’ve been there this whole time?
Yasmin: Yes.
Max: Oh.
Yasmin: Oh. No. I’m not –
Max: Are you okay?
Yasmin: Yeah, no, I’m fine. I’m not like. You know.
Max: Oh. Okay. Cool.
Yasmin: I actually just, um, got my period.
Max: Oh.
Yasmin: For the first time.
Max: Oh. Do you have. Stuff?
Yasmin: No. Do you have. Stuff?
Max: Yeah, um, do you want a pad?
Yasmin: Please.
Max: (Max shuffles through her backpack and pulls out a pad in a pink wrapper, that she slides under Yasmin’s stall) Here.
Yasmin: Thanks.
Max: You should keep a bag of supplies on you at all times. My mom got me a little gold makeup bag when I first got my period to put pads and hair ties and stuff in. You should ask your mom for one.
Yasmin: Oh. My mom’s um –
Max: Oh my God, is your Mom dead? I’m so sorry.
Yasmin: Oh, no, no she’s not. Her and my dad are divorced. She lives in Syracuse now.
Max: Where’s Syracuse?
Yasmin: New York.
Max: That’s far.
Yasmin: Yeah. That’s why I moved here last year. My uncle and his family live in town.
Max: Oh. Cool. (Pause) Is it. Going okay in there?
Yasmin: I think so. I just. Place it down?
Max: Yeah. Take off all the packaging and put it in the little box on the wall.
Yasmin: There’s no little box… It looks like it was torn off or something. There’s an outline on the wall.
Max: High school sucks.
Yasmin: Yeah no kidding.
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